Michael Covel: Author of Trend Following Category Archives

Category: Not Wall Street

A Man Who Can Swing

April 19, 2008

Manny Ramirez' career stats mean zilch if baseball is not your game. But for those who played or for those who are fans those are mean numbers...

Big Monitor Productivity

March 11, 2008

This seems to be something known before the research was done!

Drudge Spin

March 10, 2008

Today the Drudge Report has this as a headline:

Question. What is the real difference between 102 or 103 or 104 compared to 107? Drudge is a nice source of quick news, no doubt, but he seems to be trying to scare people. What action does he want them to take now that oil is 107? What action are you taking?

Unfair Fast

March 02, 2008

As a Florida State grad I have always enjoyed their football team (even with the downturn of the last 5 years). And arguably their best player ever was Deion Sanders. This morning I read that at his pro tryouts in the late 80s "Primetime" ran a 4.57 40-yard dash backwards. For anyone who has ever been timed running a 40 yard dash...isn't that number just not fair? PS. I believe back in the day I was timed at a 4.8 not running backwards.

Six Degrees. Not So Fast

February 07, 2008

Maybe it doesn't really work.

Tom Cruise and Crowd (Cult) Behavior

January 26, 2008

First the video of the year:

Your Economy Isn't As Bad as This One

January 25, 2008

What happens when second life has a second life?

Barking Doggie

January 12, 2008

From Tarantino's classic Reservoir Dogs comes an interchange (MP3) between Mr. Blonde and Mr. White:

MR. BLONDE: Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie, or are you gonna bite?

MR. WHITE: What was that? I'm sorry, I didn't catch it. Would you repeat it?

MR. BLONDE: (slowly) Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie, or are you gonna bite?

Not many movies been made like that one.

Patton Speech & Flashback

December 24, 2007

V for Vendetta Televised Speech & Trailer

An excerpt from one of the best movies of the last few years:

The trailer:

Small World Story

December 20, 2007

I received a call the other day from a guy who wanted to buy a domain I own for his daughter's rock band. Turns out that he runs all alternative investments for one of the top five U.S. banks. When he called me he had no idea who I was or what I did. He just had a phone number. I took the liberty to ask him about the investing styles he was associated with assuming that trend following trading had crossed his desk. Not only had it crossed his desk, he had read my first book. Now that is a small world random story! To top it off he had earlier in his career worked many years for one of the top trend followers of the last 25 years. Not sure I want to sell the domain in question as I have a use in mind for it, but it does say something about returning people's calls. You never know who you will bump into.

Ultraman Salute

December 17, 2007

My Japan travels of the last few years have forced me to revisit my youth and Ultraman. One particularly cool T-Rex inspired monster from Ultraman is here. My four & five-year-old nephews are of course excited every time I bring back more Ultraman monsters. But here is my question: how can I import these things? While most American kids are unfamiliar with Ultraman, I am willing to bet that if I have thousands of these monsters they will sell like hot cakes (for a premium) in the States. Work for Bandai? Drop me a line!

Cutting Fruit with Chris "Jesus" Ferguson

December 12, 2007

And the relevance of the following clip? Practice.

Catching

October 24, 2007

For the Wall Street film I am producing we just finished a Moneyball-connected shoot at Cal Ripken's minor league park. An old friend of mine, who pitched professionally for 10 years, threw some of his "stuff" at me for the better part of the morning. 'Kevin' can still get it going 85+ mph on his fastball (from his playing days high of touching 97 mph), and my catching hand (I have not caught for over 15 years) is feeling it. That said, I took none in the groin, so I am happy!

This Is No Way to Learn

October 07, 2007

Depressing state of affairs to say the least.

$5,000 "Baby Bond"

September 28, 2007

From the wires:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that every child born in the United States should get a $5,000 "baby bond" from the government to help pay for future costs of college or buying a home.

Not sure what to make of this. Will there be a market I can speculate in? Perhaps a baby bond futures contract?

NYC Shoot

September 19, 2007

Just finished three day shoot in New York City for a documentary underway.

Colo. School Bans Tag on Its Playground

August 30, 2007

Want some inspiration?

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) - An elementary school has banned tag on its playground after some children complained they were harassed or chased against their will. "It causes a lot of conflict on the playground," said Cindy Fesgen, assistant principal of the Discovery Canyon Campus school. Running games are still allowed as long as students don't chase each other, she said. Fesgen said two parents complained to her about the ban but most parents and children didn't object. In 2005, two elementary schools in the nearby Falcon School District did away with tag and similar games in favor of alternatives with less physical contact. School officials said the move encouraged more students to play games and helped reduce playground squabbles.

Now that is the way to teach kids about life! In a world that will only continue to be more competitive, we see another example of training kids to be weenies.

Mark Cuban on Dead Internet

August 24, 2007

An excerpt from a recent interview:

Lloyd Grove: As recently as May 2007, you told the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet that government policy could encourage internet providers to make the necessary investment in fiber optics to significantly increase bandwidth to home users, in line with industrialized nations such as Japan, Germany, and South Korea, and that the economic benefits would eventually outweigh the costs. But last month, you declared: “The internet is dead. It’s over.” You said it’s “for old people” and it’s a “stagnant consumer platform.” Did you change your mind between May and July? Who or what killed the internet? And aren’t you biting the hand that fed you?

Mark Cuban: The internet of today versus what I suggested to the committee would happen if internet speeds to the home increased to 1 gigabyte per second, is like comparing the plane Orville and Wilbur Wright built in 1903 to a brand-new Boeing. We have reached a point of diminishing returns with today’s internet. The speed of broadband to your home won’t increase much more in the next five years than it has in the last five years. That is not enough to work as a platform for new levels of applications that will require much, much higher levels of bandwidth. Broadband to the home isn’t fast enough for downloads of movies at DVD quality to be ubiquitous. That means it’s no longer a platform for technological innovation. Think of it this way. Way back when, electricity changed the world. It was the platform for everything electronic that we do today. Do you get excited about electricity or is it just a utility? Maybe old people who remember the advent of electricity still get excited about it. No one else does. The internet is in the same position today. It’s no longer an exciting platform for societal and business change. It’s a utility. It’s something that is exciting to people who remember the old days of the internet. The only way to change that is to upgrade the platform for bandwidth transport across the country to a minimum of 1 gigabyte per second throughout to every home. At that point kids will come up with new and unique applications that we can’t imagine today. That’s when it becomes exciting. Until then, it’s dead and boring.

Good points by Cuban.

Thoughts on Barry Bonds

August 05, 2007

Barry Bonds has now tied Hank Aaron with 755 career home runs. The lead story, however, is not Bond's achievement, but his steroid use. I have a question: when did steroid use become something new? I remember being a sophomore in high school in 1984. There were clearly many in my high school "juiced". It wasn't even a debate. So if steroids were abused back in 1984 within my high school athletic world, is someone going to try and convince me that the use of steroids in pro football and baseball only started in the nineties? Look, it sounds like Bonds is an arrogant jerk. He took steroids. But why is everyone conveniently ignoring all of the other pro athletes over the last 25 years who have made steroids part of their breakfast of champions? The dirty little secret is that most sports over the last 25 years have been injected with steroids. Please rip Bonds. He deserves it, but so does everyone else.

Note: To all non-baseball people, Bonds swing did not come from steroids. There are plenty of bloated muscle freaks who could never swing a bat. That is not a Bonds defense, just reality.

V for Vendetta

July 07, 2007

I kept catching this odd movie on HBO called V for Vendetta, but I always missed watching it from start to finish. Finally I saw it all the way through. Give it a watch. An excerpt from a speech in the movie (Ayn Rand influenced) from the character "V":

"Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last night I sought to end that silence. Last night I destroyed the Old Bailey, to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives."

"V"

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